To think it's not really possible to get wealthy?

[ilyana]

I live in London and earlier today, I treated myself to a fancy haircut in Belgravia and met a friend for a coffee and a walk around. I saw a whole side of London I don't normally see! I live in a nice enough but definitely not posh part of south London, get the bus everywhere, and shop at Lidl.

We saw a woman coming out of one of the gorgeous townhouses and getting into a chauffeur driven car, and I commented that I'd love to have that lifestyle. My friend told me I could if I really wanted it and worked for it, and that I'm limiting myself. I'm 38 and single and earn £65K at my day job and another £5K or so through a bit of freelance work on the side. I could probably push that up to £10K if I gave up a lot of my free time. I know £70-75K is decent money, but it's hardly a stepping stone to this kind of wealth, is it? If I really pushed myself at work and looked to move to another role elsewhere, I could maybe get to £85K in a year or two, possibly £100K by 42ish, but that's still not huge money in London, is it? Particularly without a partner to share costs.

AIBU to think it's pretty much impossible for me to attain that lifestyle at this point, and that almost everyone who does live like this has inherited wealth, privileges like having gone to top private schools, or married into money? Or maybe done something like bought/inherited property young and got lucky with property prices rising?

Maybe it's cultural but the Indian guys I work for are terrible for buying flashy £200k cars. I even had to pick up a top spec 7 series and a Jag 4x4 which were presents for the consultants. The new 7 series start at around £100k. That's a hell of a gift!

You think this is some really deep opinion, but it's just facile and patronising.

I'm a disabled single woman who will never have kids.

It's not about materialism, it's about being in control of creating the kind of life for myself that I want. I don't have the option of having the stuff 'normal' people get to have. I want to create a life that makes things easier for me. Being able to afford to pay people to do the stuff I struggle with or can't do - driving, cooking, cleaning. Being able to afford to travel in comfort rather than dealing with severe pain from being crammed into a tiny seat.

Five years ago, I had a horrible, sad little life. I was trapped in a miserable abusive relationship. I thought I'd never do better than working minimum wage and claiming benefits. Someone believed in me and told me I had the right to aim higher, so I did. And the more money I earned, the more options became available to me.

I'm glad you're privileged enough to be unaware that most of the stuff you take for granted costs money or is largely unattainable for me.

I think it’s very difficult if you’re working for someone else. It’s also very difficult if you work for yourself but that’s in my opinion where the money is. Blood sweat and tears = profit.

This is really useful and I'd love a thread with this kind of advice!

Maybe the Belgravia lifestyle is unattainable, but if I could at least get to a place where I could afford to fly business class, have a regular cleaner, be able to afford taxis where I need to go, that would be good enough for me!

I'm happy to work hard. I don't have much of a social life so am happy to put some hours into building a business or a side gig on top of the day job. I just don't know what.

I think it's possible to feel wealthier dependent where you live. I would feel less wealthy in London, and certainly would have a much poorer lifestyle there. Not that I am wealthy but in comparison am probably "better off" where I live, where it is much cheaper than London.

I have jumped from being a low earner, to marrying into slightly wealthy (high earner, house in zone 2, not Belgravia), to now more wealthy (could afford a house in Belgravia and a chauffeur if we wanted (but we don't), and would feel poor amongst the oligarchs). The second increase came from a lot of luck and risky investments - about as lucky as a lottery win, though with a fair bit of research and keeping a cool head on my part. I do know that I'm very unusual in that.

Most of the people we know who are multi millionaires have sold businesses. We know lots of people with very high paying jobs in law and banking who would probably be able to buy in Belgravia (but they'd be at the poorer end of residents there). Some of them may well have inheritances or trust funds behind them, it's not something they tend to admit.

I went for drinks at the Savoy for a Christmas treat a few years ago, all dressed up. The girls sat next to us were in hoodies and trainers and you could tell that they were rich by how casually they were dressed, like it was their local.

Overheard one girl nonchalantly mention going to Paris with another friend and how that friends’ parents owned some French football club, and thought to myself “wow, that’s rich people’s lives!”.

It was nice to see how the other half lives once in a while!

As for getting there, I think hard work / putting the time in can only get you so far, unless you have a company to sell or become famous. I think a lot of it is down to family wealth.

Even a lot of high flying careers are made much more accessible (if not possible) by going to certain schools and making the right connections).

I’m loving all the stories of PP getting rich off investments and stocks. It’s something I’m curious about but it feels so over my head!

I lost a lot. It's not guaranteed.

As for getting there, I think hard work / putting the time in can only get you so far, unless you have a company to sell or become famous. I think a lot of it is down to family wealth.

I'm not so sure. It often seems to be those that grew up without much that are the hungriest. Like Alan Sugar.

Most of the rich builders I know didn't grow up in posh environments. Was talking to an Indian guy the other day who our company is building 150 appts for. The guy has something like 60 apartment blocks with the smallest having 70 flats and the biggest was 400 I think.

That's an insane amount of rent to be collecting monthly!

Yeah that’s what I’m scared of.

And knowing my luck I’ll fall for a con man or one of those ponzi schemes!

You are not getting that kind of wealth by working in your normal job. There is rich through a career (celebrity? Sports person? Hedge fund manager?), there is rich through oil and mineral rights (which is another level of rich), and the possibly rich through dubious ways (Russian oligarch…). Or marry any of those…

You are doing really well, OP! You’ve already significantly increased your income and yes you can increase it further to 100-120-maybe even 150K even if we are talking about salary.
(I believe that there are diminishing returns after that figure and anyway less and less people are able make more. If you have side hustles as side businesses or invest, then you can do very well. Go for it! (Obviously taking into account your health- don’t work yourself to the ground)

it is totally okay to want to do better and aspire to more comfortable/convenient lifestyle even if it is not Belgravia town house level.

(I think I missed why you don’t use Uber but it’s pretty close to a chauffeur on call btw.)

and honestly your lifestyle when you can travel is great. Maybe you won’t have kids (if you say so), but you can see the world. I wouldn’t necessarily think that you won’t have a partner ;) - but your strategy when you do things that you enjoy rather than sitting around or looking to couple up is the best, because fulfilled people who enjoy life are very attractive.

wishing you all the best

Yup except the always forget that they dropped out of highly sought after programs at ivy leavue unis. They were hardly your average joe

I went to a private school where most of the people were as youdescribe. The majority were horrible arseholes. It put me off those circles and that's a shame as i'd like to earn more nowadays.

It absolutely is possible. I've got family members who started a business from a market stall and it grew into well known brand and a publically listed company. They made millions.

Other relatives, not in the UK, started a bakery and ended up supplying all the supermarkets, again made millions.

Another set of relatives again not in the UK started a clothing chain and then branched out into a steel factory (!), also millionaires.

All came from nothing. There's no guarantee but hard work can make you very rich.

We're not wealthy, but we're comfortable and happy and content with our lot.

I mean who wants fleets of cars? No wonder the planet is fucked if people prioritise that.

i worked for a billionaire and was overseas on a special project for his company and his son flew in on their private jet, in a full tuxedo on his way to a dinner with the country’s leader.

I met with him on the plane, his phone rang and it was his dad roaring at him for taking the jet instead of a commercial airline. i had a good relationship and he was just laughing like a kid who’d been told off for taking the last biscuit.

His dad was never happy. He once asked me why he couldn’t sit on the front row at a big UN event in New York and I said that it was for leaders of countries and he was furious he wasn’t up there with them.

I was once thrown a credit card and told to “go buy more of the same gifts” at Bloomingdales. I had no idea but luckily my CFO had a shopping habit so I went to his personal shopping assistant and he went through the sales to figure it out.

I wasn’t a personal assistant by the way- but everyone is their personal assistant no matter what your day job is.

the intensity and extreme competition with always wanting more doesn’t seem to stop even when you have it all if that is your nature.

my advice to my daughters is basically get into investment banking, where they are desperate to improve their gender pay gap. And dont go near any man that doesnt have at least their own earning potential

Life goes very quick.
Being a slave to money for it to bring you some joy is not worth it.
Enjoy your friends, family and time you have now.
Simple things. Value them.
Change the mindset.
Extreme wealth is not a good desire.

The business class and cleaner scenario are absolutely attainable in my view.

I don’t have any family here. A huge part of wanting to afford to travel more is to be able to visit people!

Most of my friends are also abroad. I have very few local friends and find it very hard to meet people in London.

Before you tell me to move to where ‘they’ are – I can’t. ‘They’, as in friends and family, are scattered all over the world. I don’t have a home base. One of the reasons I chose to stay in London after my breakup is that it’s so incredibly easy to travel from. I also make far more money here than would be possible elsewhere in the UK or most other countries. Even taking my large mortgage repayments into account, I have way more left after that than I'd even be earning in most other places.

I’m not talking about wanting to be a ‘slave’ to money. I have limited energy to physically do things, and I feel that putting more hours into freelance work is probably better than watching Netflix. I feel rubbish after evening after evening of doing nothing after work. I feel like I'm totally wasting my life. At least if I were working or aiming for something, I’d feel like I was getting somewhere. The thought of that business class trip to New York or a week on the beach in Mexico would be something to look forward to instead of every day feeling like groundhog day. Having a successful business or side gig would also be very rewarding in terms of feelings of accomplishment.

I see that the Belgravia level of wealth is unrealistic (and I never thought it was – I just wanted to prove it to my friend) but this thread has shown me that it probably is realistic to aim for being able to afford to fly Business and upgrade my lifestyle a bit to be more comfortable. I'm sure there might be some ways to reduce the cost of that using a BA credit card or other things I haven't looked into yet.

I do enjoy simple things, as I've said already. I appreciate what I have, I enjoy a morning walk in the park, people watching with a coffee, doing some volunteering. So what? Am I not allowed to want more?

I hate this shaming of people for wanting to have a nice lifestyle. I work hard and the stuff other people have - partners, kids, isn't available to me. Why the hell shouldn't I want to buy a really nice handbag or go on a luxury city break? What's the point in working if I have to live like a frugal hermit?

Balance is everything.
Envy is the thief of joy.

You're incredibly defensive and hostile. I don't understand why. You're getting a lot of really supportive and generous messages here op.

Watch the recent Dubai bbc documentary if you want an insight into extreme wealth. It makes for very uncomfortable viewing.